Wasps help farmers fight mealybug pest in Kenya

Papaya farmers in Kenya are turning to a novel solution to combat the devastating papaya mealybug pest—parasitic wasps.The mealybug, native to Central America, is a rapidly spreading crop pest that has been wreaking havoc on papaya crops in Kenya since 2015, causing significant economic losses for smallholder farmers.Dorcus Lekesio, a smallholder farmer from Baringo county, has been a papaya farmer for more than 15 years. She depends on it to feed her family and educate her children."Papaya farming is my main source of income … my livelihood depends on it," she says.She says the mealybug infestation reduced her expected harvest by over half in the last year."We used many chemicals to spray the plants, but it has not been working," she adds.Alfred Bolo, another papaya smallholder from Kwale, in coastal Kenya, encountered the mealybugs on his farm in January last year.He says he used pesticides, but they only provided temporary relief."I was very annoyed … I used to crush them with ...